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The Hot New Collective Punishment

The camp calling for academic boycotts of Israel has got an ingenious little plan for deflecting charges of antisemitism: condemn antisemitism: The first item of business for the first congress of the University and College Union addresses matters under the … Read More

The camp calling for academic boycotts of Israel has got an ingenious little plan for deflecting charges of antisemitism: condemn antisemitism:

The first item of business for the first congress of the University and College Union addresses matters under the heading “Equality,” noting that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain rose 31 percent from 2005 to 2006. A resolution stating, “Anti-Semitism is becoming acceptable in the U.K., including on university campuses” is to be voted on.

But that debate, said Dan Ashley, a spokesman for the University and College Union, is separate from another resolution, which “condemns the complicity of Israeli academia in the occupation” of Palestinian lands, “which has provoked a call from Palestinian trade unions for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli academic institutions.”

When P.J. O'Rourke was still funny he had a good line about seeing men at "Take Back the Night" rallies on college campuses. There wasn't anything wrong with it, of course, but it still seemed suspicious, sort of like seeing a sign for "The International Association of Pitbulls Against Toddler Mauling."

Witnessing a gaggle of tenth-rate British academics trying to alienate the entire intellectual class of the Jewish state and then claim Jew-hatred is an awful and still-dangerous phenomenon indeed is another vigorous spin on that O'Rourkean wheel.

At the very least, I'll be interested to hear Mr. Ashley define "complicity" and name names. Then I'll even help him register the domain name for additional academic boycott websites. You know, one for Sudan, one for Iran, one for Nigeria, one for Zimbabwe, one for Russia, etc., etc.